Fractured and Broken
by Zannen
Summary: Shinobi are tools of war and destruction. Did you really think that any of them could remain sane for long?
1. Idle Hands

**Kakashi**

I went for a walk today.

I interacted with a few people and promptly forgot their names and faces as soon as I got home.

Is that how it is for everyone? Blind to everything but that which concerns only themselves and their immediate area and well-being? Willing to forget anything unpleasant or ordinary for the sake of sanity?

Cycles and cycles...I was like this before. I thought things like this before and dreamed of a world where I wasn't who I am now. I pulled myself up from that road to a place where I was happy for a good while.

And now, I'm all too easily slipping into that place where I was before. I find myself falling into that pit, digging myself deeper into depression and sadness and isolation.

I hide because it's easy...and I'm a coward. I let go too soon. Because it hurts less if I say I don't care than to ask why you don't care enough.

Some say I should be over this sadness. I'm too old for that silliness, they say. They say that I should work through the depression and lose myself in those pursuits in which I find joy.

But they don't tell me what to do when the things I found joy in no longer bring me to that state of emotion.

Idle hands are the Devil's plaything...

If that's true, then my Devil is whispering things to me. She plants seeds of doubt into my mind and feeds off of my fears and insecurities.

"No one wants you," she whispers as she strokes my hair. "Or if they do, it's only for a while. Only until they get to know you."

Each whisper, each doubt, cracks a little more of my heart; breaks a little more of my spirit. Until I am empty, that Devil will not rest.

If I was stronger, I would fight. If I was more confident, I would turn this depression around. I would smile like I used to and be content (if not happy).

I was content once.


	2. Better Than Nothing

**Sakura**

In another time and place, I guess I'd be called his mistress. Excluded from every aspect of his life except those he wishes to share with me. He could have other girls, another family, but come back to me. And God forbid I try to include him into my life. Those two lines must never cross.

And part of me is cool with that...because that would make him mine in some small way.

Another part calls me a chump and pathetic. Pathetic because so much of my own personal happiness hinges on the whims of a man-boy who can't figure out what he wants out of life and out of me.

It shouldn't have to be that way. But there it is.

I find myself once again being the 3 AM girl. The one my man who is not my man can call no matter the time or place and I'll come to comfort him, make him feel better--feel good, make him forget his worries.

But who will be there to help me forget mine?

* * *

I've come to the conclusion that I can be whatever he wants me to be...

Whatever he needs me to be.

I'm worse than Helena from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

More pathetic than Kate from Taming of the Shrew.

My spirit succumbs to the overwhelming threat of loneliness. My heart is no longer my own to break and abuse.

* * *

It hurts, but I'm numb. I know there is pain...I can remember feeling it. I remember hot tears on my face. But now it's indescribable...this state I'm in now.

At times I feel I can be happy. I can grasp short minutes of happiness. And as I watch them slip through my fingers like silk my soul dies a little more.

When I hold you to me, in the darkness of our room, my happiness is gone. Because I know that when the sun comes, when light and the world wakes to start its dance again, all thoughts of me will fade from you.

So I make myself indispensable as a lover...as the body you come home to each night.

I make sure that what I give you can't be found in just any woman, any lover. I make sure that the name you whisper in the darkness is mine. The hair that you wrap your fingers around is mine. The lips you take are mine. The body you lose yourself in is MINE.

But the heart you own--the one you'll give to the one you find--isn't mine. When you find her my tears will dry and leave salty tracks on my cheeks. The fire that was in me will leave because it was yours.

It always was yours.

My passion for life will leave me when you do.

When you finally leave me for good.

Until then, I will hold you to my heart at night. And cry dry tears when you turn away from me...even in sleep.


	3. Cold As Me

**Sasuke**

I isolate myself. I force myself to stay away from people, from those that help me, from those that hinder me. I stay away from family and friends; from those who love me...from those who could _grow_ to love me. I keep myself apart.

Aloof.

Cold.

I have to force myself to be warm. Force myself to laugh and drink; to smoke and fuck. I _have _to force myself to care.

Because the truth is...there is so little that I truly care about.

It wasn't taken away from me--the love I once had and took for granted.

Instead, it slipped away. And I let it.

Because I was lazy or because my subconscious decided that I didn't deserve it or whatever.


	4. Shut Up

**Naruto**

It hurts...

It's a ragged hole, burning and crushing my chest. I can't breathe. I can't stop the tears falling down my face. It hurts and I want it to stop.

I _need_ it to stop.

I'd do anything, sell my soul, sell my emotions, to make this pain stop.

Because I can't sleep. I force myself to eat.

Make it stop. Make it all stop.

Time has been no friend to me. It keeps going and with it everything I've held dear.

I lie awake in bed and the pressure is still there. My brain knows what it can do to stop this. My heart cries out for it. I need to make it stop.

I need it to shut up.

Shut up the nagging thoughts that prevent sleep...shut up the devil on my shoulder...shut up the fox in my head...shut up that voice--all the voices--that make me feel like I'm worthless.

Just shut up.


End file.
